


And the Sound of Distant Ringing

by cmut (confiscatedretina)



Series: Unsupervised Fun With Aliens [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, Nookworms, nookworm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 14:33:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3854251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confiscatedretina/pseuds/cmut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jade finds something in Karkat's respite block which sparks one of the most awkward conversations in all of paradox space.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the Sound of Distant Ringing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SybLaTortue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SybLaTortue/gifts).



> SybLaTortue keeps making [hilariously inspirational](http://syblatortue.tumblr.com/post/117820485781/i-just-found-your-comparison-of-grubs-and) posts! Please, someone stop me. Send help...!

In most species, screaming is a worrying sign. At the sound of Harley shrieking your name, you drop the nutrition platter in your hand and bolt to the upper level of your hive like your head is on fire and the only cure is a three story plummet out a window.

"Harley!" your respite block door slams open at your forceful urging. "What the fuck is going on?! How much ass do I need to..."

"Karkat!" her back is to you and there's something cradled in her arms. "I didn't know you were already a daddy!"

You blink. "What the fuck is a...dah-dee?"

Jade chooses that moment to thrust her hands into the air, the squirming creature in her fingers halting your cautious forward momentum as surely as a sword cane to the thorax.

"It's so cute!"

"Oh my god."

"What's his name? Is it even a boy? Who's the mommy? Oh god, should I leave? Is she going to be mad if I'm here?"

The sound your forward cranial cap makes striking your palm stings in the aural clots. "Harley..."

She's cuddling it to her rumble spheres and cooing, tickling it with a finger. With a skittering, sinking feeling in your blood pusher and an epithet under your breath it dawns on you what she is implying. You are going to vomit with embarrassment any second now.

"Harley."

"Gosh, I didn't think you could even produce such a friendly little guy, Karkat! Um, no offense or anything, you're just kind of a grump. But not this cutie pie!"

Shit on salt plateaus, she's rubbing it on her god damned face.

"JADE!"

Her grotesque displays of human affection freeze.

"That's not my offspring."

One of her dark eyebrows lifts in puzzlement. "Oh?"

God. Fuck. You roll your gander bulbs toward the ceiling in a silent plea that, somehow, a ray of sunlight will be merciful enough to just explode through it and fry your pan into oblivion before you finish speaking.

"It's...that's..." you groan. "Jade Harley, meet Will Smith. My nookworm."

"Your nook...worm...?" her face goes blank. "Oh. Oooooooh."

To her credit she doesn't drop it or throw it out the window. Jade just stretches her arms out and offers it to you in silence. That is a really impressive shade of red on her face. It almost makes you feel better about your own disgusting blood color to watch her slowly turn the same hue you've been since this horrendous debacle started.

"Can I ask...?"

"Yes, human Jade Harley. Please. Ask me about my very private, very personal sex toys. It's the conversation I have been waiting my entire acquaintanceship with you, nay, my whole festering pustule of a life, to have. With you. An alien from another universe. Let us discuss my unique physiology and the depraved machinations thereof. Would you like me to make us some fucking hot leaf juice and yeast loaf nutrient stacks before we start?"

"God, okay, calm down," she's crossing her arms over her thorax and giving you that look you refuse to admit is really adorable. "You didn't let me finish, asshole. I was going to ask, since I've seen your, uh...toy...if you wanted to see any of mine."

"...Humans have nooks?" You could just gouge your pan out with a pronged eating utensil right now.

"Maybe? I don't really know what a nook is?" Jade waves vaguely at you as she turns to exit your respite block. "Come on, I packed a few special things in my luggage. I'll show you!"

"You brought...sex toys? On a visit to my hive?"

Her answer is that sound you are starting to realize is the human equivalent to a non-verbal expression of flushed interest. What did Egbert call it? A giggle? Yeah, that's it. Maybe the universe is less bent on making you as constantly miserable as you thought.

"Wait..." Jade's head pokes back into your respite block. "Did you say...Will Smith?"

"Oh my god!"

In a flutter of black hair she's out the door, laughing. You trail behind her in full voice, Will clutched in your arms, to explain in anguished detail why this is not that funny and how past you fucking sucks bulge and...!

And... "Wait, those...? Are your...toys?"

"Yeah?"

"And you put them in your...whatever you have?"

"Yes..."

Nope, you take it back. The universe still hates you and is about to cull you by means of blunt force trauma to the cranial sphere with an alien genital stimulation device because that is the only rational response Harley will have when you reveal the depths of your gullible idiocy.

"I am going to murder Dave fucking Strider," you say in complete seriousness.

"...Why?" Jade tilts her head, confused, but there is a quirk at one corner of her mouth.

"That seed flap sniffing, load gaper stain told me they were a human kind of aural relaxation harmonic tube."

Her brows knit together. "A what?"

"You know. The noise tubes you hang in clusters outdoors. They move in the wind."

"Oh my god!" she actually squeaks after clapping a hand to her mouth, gander bulbs crinkling at the corners. "Like...a wind chime?"

"Yes," a cold, vicious calm has settled in you. "I am going to take every single one of those aural tubes...toys...whatever! And shove them so far up Dave's-!"

"Wait, wait! You mean you have an actual..." it sounds like she's suffocating holding that laugh in so hard, "...wind...chime?"

"That's what I said, and Dave Strider is going to feel every single piece in every single one of his-"

"Oh god please tell me where it is! I need to see it, Karkat! Need to!"

It takes her four minutes and thirteen seconds to stop laughing once you've escorted her out the hive's back exit and pointed the damn thing out. You counted. There was nothing else to do while she was in helpless paroxysms on the tranquility inducing multipurpose lawn ring block. You even had time to put Will back in your recuperacoon and return, by which point she had crawled into an outdoor backed reclining stool and was wiping tears off her cheeks.

The two of you do eventually share cups of hot leaf juice and some decent yeast loaf nutrient stacks under your questionable harmonic cluster. It thunks and clinks in a pleasant night breeze, gaudy colors lit by moonlight. A few minutes after Jade starts trying to explain how the "chimes" really work, she gives up and drags you back inside.

Apparently it's easier to show than it is to tell.


End file.
